ROAD TO RIO The BCA in close collaboration with the BWF has officially launched its ‘Road to Rio’ program during the course of the African Badminton Cup of Nations which was held in Mauritius form the 14 to the 20 August 2013. The Road to Rio is a program that will provide all the possible technical and some financial support to selected African players who have the possibility to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. 14 players are currently selected for the program based on their potential to qualify for the Games. The program is exclusively for singles players as it will be extremely difficult to qualify for the doubles events. During a meeting which was held with the selected players and their coaches in Mauritius, Ian Wright the Development Director of the BWF explained that the BWF wants to help more African to qualify for the next Olympic Games and this is why the BWF/ BCA are investing a lot of resources to achieve this objective. Mr. Wright also added that it is a must that all the National Federations commit to this program by respecting the different criteria that will be set by the BWF/BCA. For instance, National Federation should respect deadlines for entering their players in the selected tournaments and also provide necessary information for visa and other purposes in time. On the other hand, the players should also provide their training details and their availability until the Olympic Games in 2016. “It is vital that there is perfect coordination and cooperation between the different parties involved in order to have a successful program”, stated the BWF representative. Mr Keys explained the high performance concept in Badminton if players really want to qualify what are the sacrifices that must be done and the hard work that the players and the officials of their Federations have to do to be able to qualify. Training Camp The first activity for the selected players will be a training camp which will be conducted in Gaborone, Botswana and Pretoria, South Africa in December 2013. The camp will begin before the Botswana Internationals and as soon as that tournament will end, the camp will continue in South Africa until the start of the South Africa Internationals. Apart from the camp, the players will be able to compete for points in both tournaments to enhance their current world ranking. This will also be a perfect opportunity for the players to meet and discuss their plans for 2014 and it will also enable the experts and technicians to guide and help the players to take appropriate decisions regarding their training and participations in tournaments. Among the 14 players selected, there are 8 boys and 6 girls. The best African players were selected for this program and among them we find experienced players like the Ugandan Edwin Ekiring or Hadia Hosny from Egypt. Also, new faces like Atish Lubah of Mauritius, Mercy Joseph of Kenya and the Algerians Rahim Belarbi and Adel Hamek were included in the list after their encouraging performances during the last African Badminton Cup of Nations. List :Edwin EKIRING (UGA) - Jacob MALIEKAL & Prakash VIJAYANATH (RSA) - Adel HAMEK & Abderahmane BELARBI (ALG) - Daniel SAM (GHA) - Gaone TAWANA (BOT) - Grace GABRIEL (NGR) - Kate FOO KUNE & Nicki CHN-LAM (MRI) - Mercy JOSEPH (KEN) - Elme DE VILLIERS (RSA)
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 12:09:20 +0000
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